NEWS

What an amazing day for our performance stars! It was all about the fitness this weekend!

I headed off to Sale to participate with Baby (Am Ch Ch Calaban's Dirty Dancing RN JC (Imp USA)) in my very first endurance test, held by the East Gippsland Dog Obedience Club. After she'd finished with puppy duties, I'd been spending a fair bit of time getting Baby fit again for all of the sports she participates in, and thought I'd pull out my old bike that had been sitting up on the garage wall for years without being touched. From there it seemed logical to start thinking about trying an ET with her. I picked the very last trial of the season to give us as much time as possible, but I was still very very nervous about tackling that 20km, and almost chickened out over the week.

I really shouldn't have worried, because Baby came through it comfortably, with even the vet on her mid trial vet checks commenting how fit she was. I could tell her muscles were pretty fatigued by the last couple of kilometres though, and I think we were both glad to have a rest after. She gained her pass card from judge D Ayton, and that gives her an ET title to add to the fast increasing letters on the back of her name. It was a lovely trial, a lot of fun, beautiful location, and a great organising team, so a special day all round.

In Sydney, Shell had been competing with Squiggle (Ch & Neut Ch Armahani Diamond Dansut (AI) CCD RA JD HT ET JC FM) at a couple of backpacking trials, and earned her forth length toward the total 64km she needed to gain her Working Pack Dog (WPD) title. She's a tough little cookie.

And given we were in Sale, it wasn't possible for Baby to attend the Hound Club of Victoria's lure coursing trial today. But I was very thrilled to get the news from Kat, there with Tortik, that he had got through his two runs famously, and earned his first JC qualification with a score of 160! That is both Kat and Tortik's first performance quallie, so doubly proud of both of them!

Louis (Sup Ch C'est Louis Armstrong des Chevaloupsgreg CD RAE RM HSAs (Imp USA)) and I were off to the State Rally trial at KCC Park today. In the morning trial he earned himself another RM qualification toward his next title with a score of 95 under NSW judge Mrs M Foord.

The afternoon trial was not quite as successful, he still quallied, but with a score of 86 it was too low for the ones we need.